Best Practices in Vendor and Project Management

Archive for November, 2010

Here at Impactiviti, we identify the top providers of marketing and training services – companies and people that are high-quality, proven, and recommended by our clients – to make your selection process much easier.

One of our partners does an exceptional job with Immersive Learning – eLearning simulations and case studies. This type of development requires robust experience in both technology and instructional design – along with deep pharma expertise.

Here at Impactiviti, we identify the top providers of marketing and training services – companies and people that are high-quality, proven, and recommended by our clients – so that you don’t have to start from scratch. How great is that?

One of our consulting partners does an exceptional job with training for Managed Care/Managed Markets. For this need, you need deep and focused expertise – we know what you’re looking for.

Very few people tasked with running projects in Sales Training, Marketing, HR, and Communications have any background or training in managing vendors and projects. We come in and provide immediate, hands-on direction that makes a difference the very next day.

In one very practical workshop, we impart the basics of project management, including working with outside suppliers and inside resources to bring about Project Success.

The amount of money leaking out of budgets each year because of failed projects and poor vendor selection is staggering. Call Impactiviti to arrange for this critically-important workshop in your department. It will pay for itself many times over!

Here at Impactiviti, we identify the top providers of marketing and training services – companies and people that are high-quality, proven, and recommended by our clients – so that you don’t have to start from scratch. How great is that?

One of our partners does an exceptional job with training for MSLs (Medical Science Liaisons). Generally, there is very little focused, well-tailored training for these important people – we can help you fix that.

Download this one-pager: MSL Training, and let us know how we can be of assistance!

I’m on the Amtrak Acela, enjoying a train ride with Manny Hernandez and Kerri Sparling (a couple of well-known diabetes bloggers). I’ve been determined to know more about this increasingly prevalent disease, and given that this weekend includes World Diabetes Day, I thought I’d conduct an in-train interview with these two friends about living with diabetes. So here, they speak from the heart to the rest of us who may be quite unaware of what this disease is all about.

SW: Kerri, you were diagnosed with diabetes at about age 6. Tell me how people begin to discover that there’s a problem, leading to a diagnosis of diabetes.

KS: There’s more than one type of diabetes. I was diagnosed early on with Type 1 diabetes, which means that my pancreas basically stopped producing insulin. For me, the first indicator was onset of bed-wetting in first grade, which can be a symptom of high blood sugar. A couple of months later, a urine test confirmed that I had Type 1 diabetes.

SW: Why would someone’s pancreas stop producing insulin?

KS: It’s an auto-immune disease, and the causes are still a mystery. For me, the doctors figured there was probably some hidden genetic predisposition, triggered by a virus.

SW: Was your experience similar, Manny?

MH: Actually, no. Sometimes there’s a much longer delayed fuse on the onset, so I didn’t have symptoms and wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult. My type of diabetes is referred to as LADA – Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults. This is often misdiagnosed as Type 2 diabetes because of the later onset, when in fact it’s a form of Type 1 (we sometimes refer to it as Type 1.5).

SW: So in your case, and for many other people, there’s not someone “at fault” – this disease was not caused by bad parenting or too many lollipops…

KS: Absolutely not! Type 1 diabetes is not my fault, my parent’s fault, or anyone else’s fault. It’s a disease that I have to deal with and manage, but there’s no-one to blame.

SW: But do you still feel a sense that people, out of ignorance, try to assign blame for your diabetes?

KS: Yes, and that’s because there’s a lack of awareness about the causes of diabetes, and the various types of diabetes. Part of managing diabetes is managing the disease, and part of it, quite frankly, is managing misconceptions.

SW: In the simplest terms, what are the major differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes?

MH: In Type 1, you have a malfunctioning pancreas, which no longer produces insulin. In Type 2, the body develops resistance to insulin – your body still produces it, but insulin is not able to do its job properly. Both are called diabetes, but the treatments and management strategies can be quite different.

SW: You’ve both explained to me the day-to-day, hour-by-hour management of diabetes, including a mix of regular insulin injections (or use of high-tech devices to pump insulin into your system); monitors; test strips, etc. There’s really no relief, no let-up, from keeping blood sugar levels under control, is there?

MH: No. Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to all sorts of additional health problems, so it’s vital to try to maintain consistent control. Perfect control is impossible, but good disease management is increasingly possible with the right tools and approaches. And even then, diabetes sometimes decides to do wacky things.

SW: If you could get one message across to those of us that don’t experience this disease, what would it be?

KS: That even if we don’t look sick, we still deserve a cure. Managing diabetes is a marathon, with the constant threat of health complications at every step. We have to try to do the best we can with a uncooperative pancreas, and we hope that someday we can move from unceasing measurement and management to a cessation of the disease.

MH: I would advise people to get connected – there is a very active and supportive diabetes on-line community (DOC) that can become a very valuable source of help and information – be sure to share what you’re learning with your physician.

SW: I have a lot to learn. At least I understand that I’m not going to “catch” diabetes from a doorknob or anything, right?

KS: You realize that if you keep hanging out with us your pancreas will stop working… :>}

We take great pride at Impactiviti in lining up the best providers of training and marketing services – companies and people that are high-quality, proven, and recommended by our clients.

One of our partners does an exceptional job with training departments looking for help with Compliance/Certification Training. An array of courses (off-the-shelf eLearning, and customized) is available for various compliance needs; PDMA, PhRMA Code, HIPAA, MSL responsibilities, and more!

This partner also does a great job with other areas of eLearning/technical development.

We’ve had a good number of new on-line initiatives launching in pharma-world lately, which is a welcome development. A new kid on the block is PharmaFaceoff, a joint venture of Pharmaceutical Executive magazine and Concentric Pharma Advertising.

I took a look at the initial video – here are some first impressions:

The format is a high-quality video, featuring a moderator and several panelists, purportedly having a face-off about some relevant topic. The interface is clean, straightforward, and social-friendly. User comments are enabled. Immediate visual/user experience: positive.

Bottom line: I like the idea very much. As for the initial session (which is really more of a discussion than a true faceoff), between Bruce Grant (Digitas), Jennifer Colapietro (PWC), and Michael Sanzen (Concentric) – well, it was fairly basic, and overloaded a bit with agency-speak. I’d call this first one PharmaFacetime for agency folks. Plus, the moderator, Barbara Ryan (Deutsche Bank) seemed tentative in her role. But, this is a new venture and you have to expect a shakedown period.

The approach has great potential, and kudos to PharmaExec for taking it on. A wider variety of speakers with truly differing viewpoints will be needed to make this a “sticky” destination, but let’s face it – video is where it’s at for on-line communications, and this is a great way to hash out some issues and gain needed exposure. I think there needs to be some clarity as to target audience (general public? pharma marketers?), and a clear commitment needs to be made either to nicely-controlled civilized discussions or genuine opinionated debate with a few flying sparks lighting things up. So we’ll see how it evolves. But overall, thumbs up for a creative inaugural flight!

Welcome!

Steve Woodruff
President, Impactiviti

Testimonials

“Steve Woodruff is one of the most “networked” people I’ve found in pharmaceutical training. His communications are always smart and targeted, and I value his professional partnership.” -Jennifer Zinn, Director, Worldwide Marketing, Clinical Laboratory, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics